Reviewed by Martin Plaut - Eritrea is at peace, yet its people are flooding across its borders. As many are being caught reaching the shores of Europe as come from Syria, escaping from that nation's civil war. The Eritrean situation can be summed up in two comparative statistics. In the first quarter of 2014 one Syrian for every 3887 of the population was found to have crossed illegally into the European Union. By comparison, one in every 3411 Eritreans have fled their country. Hundreds of desperate men and women wind up drowning in the Mediterranean or trapped in Calais, attempting to reach Britain. Eritrea finally achieved its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, after a struggle lasting three decades. How is it that a nation born in such hope now finds itself in this position? This unfolding catastrophe is, in part, the legacy of the border war with Ethiopia (May 1998 to June 2000). The conflict is said to have resulted in 100,000 deaths; my belief is that the real total was considerably higher. The war left the border unresolved and resulted in a terrible stalemate with Ethiopia. President Isaias Afwerki ordered that conscripts should continue to man the border. They [...]
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